Spectropolarimetric observations of Herbig Ae/Be Stars I: HiVIS spectropolarimetric calibration and reduction techniques

Abstract

Using the HiVIS spectropolarimeter built for the Haleakala 3.7m AEOS telescope in Hawaii, we are collecting a large number of high precision spectropolarimetrc observations of stars. In order to precisely measure very small polarization changes, we have performed a number of polarization calibration techniques on the AEOS telescope and HiVIS spectrograph. We have extended our dedicated IDL reduction package and have performed some hardware upgrades to the instrument. We have also used the ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeter on CFHT to verify the HiVIS results with back-to-back observations of MWC 361 and HD163296. Comparision of this and other HiVIS data with stellar observations from the ISIS and WW spectropolarimeters in the literature further shows the usefulness of this instrument.

35 pages, 44 figures, Accepted by PASP

References in corpus (6)

• A search for strong, ordered magnetic fields in Herbig Ae/Be stars
• The magnetic field of the pre-main sequence Herbig Ae star HD 190073
• On the difference between Herbig Ae and Herbig Be stars
• Spectropolarimetry of the H-alpha line in Herbig Ae/Be stars
• A New Mechanism for Polarizing Light from Obscured Stars
• The new HiVIS spectropolarimeter and spectropolarimetric calibration of the AEOS telescope

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Speckle Suppression Through Dual Imaging Polarimetry, and a Ground-Based Image of the HR 4796A Circumstellar Disk
• Spectropolarimetric Observations of Herbig Ae/Be Stars. II. Comparison of Spectropolarimetric Surveys: HAeBe, Be and Other Emission-Line Stars
• Towards understanding dynamo action in M dwarfs
• Calibrating and Stabilizing Spectropolarimeters with Charge Shuffling and Daytime Sky Measurements
• Measuring the continuum polarization with ESPaDOnS